Hubbell Realty bets on retired boomers with golf course

Developer to add 9-hole course, single-family home lots at Woodland Hills near Ankeny

Mar. 26, 2014
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Ken Norland, director of golf at Woodland Hills Golf Course, stands near where the first green will be located at Hubbell Reality's planned nine-hole executive golf course. / Bill Neibergall/The Register

About the column

The Growth column will be a weekly look at how greater Des Moines is growing as developers break ground throughout the metro. Joel Aschbrenner will tell you each Thursday about a new development, explore a trend or touch on several projects garnering interest. Ideas or questions? Email him at jaschbrenn@dmreg.com or send a tweet to @joelaschbrenner. Find more coverage at DesMoinesRegister.com/Development

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Hubbell Realty is betting that baby boomers will be scheduling more tee times as they retire.

The West Des Moines development company announced Tuesday that it is adding a nine-hole, executive-style golf course at the Woodland Hills Golf Course, between Des Moines and Ankeny.

Some course owners have said Iowa’s golf market, while slowly improving, is oversaturated with too many courses and too few players. In 2011, high commodity prices prompted the owner of a golf course in northern Iowa to plow fairways and greens to plant crops. Other Iowa courses, including Bos Landen in Pella, are for sale.

Ken Norland, director of golf for Hubbell Realty, said he doesn’t think it will be hard to fill the tee boxes at Woodland Hills.

“I see demand growing in the next five years as this current generation starts to retire and plays more golf,” he said.

Executive courses generally feature short holes made for quick rounds. The Executive 9 at Woodland Hills will have a total par of 31, with five par-3 holes and four par-4 holes.

Hubbell plans to develop 130 single-family home lots around the executive course and another 61 along the fairways of Woodland Hills’ existing 18-hole course.

The new course, which is expected to open this fall, is being built on the site of a former nine-hole course but will have a different layout, Norland said.

Hubbell closed the nine-hole course years ago with plans to turn it into a native-grass prairie as part of a conservation-oriented housing development. The company, though, decided it could add value to the homes and still maintain the conservation efforts by turning part of the prairie into a golf course, said Joe Pietruszynski, Hubbell’s vice president of land development.

East Village's southern end may be up next for an overhaul

Amid the efforts to revitalize the East Village’s southern end, the block of East Third Street between East Court Avenue and East Walnut Street could be next up for an overhaul.

Community Housing Initiatives bought three buildings on the block from Dilley Manufacturing for $750,000 this month. The nonprofit development group plans to convert a single-story brick warehouse at the corner of East Third Street and East Court Avenue into its new office and sell the other two buildings to developers, said Chief Operating Officer Sam Erickson.

Across the street, the owner of a two-story warehouse at 212 E. Third St. plans to convert the building into five apartments.

Dilley Manufacturing, a printing company, is moving its business to Clive, said Kevin Flagg, vice president of operations.

The buildings bought by CHI will be eligible for historic tax credits. One of the buildings, a 114-year-old warehouse, was used to print anti-Hitler and anti-Japanese propaganda fliers during World War II, Flagg said.

Community Housing Initiatives, which is based in Spencer, has five employees in Des Moines and plans to expand to seven when it moves into its new office in the fall.

City planners have said the southern end of the East Village, an industrial area known as the Market District, is prime for redevelopment. Earlier this year, Modus Engineering began renovating a century-old warehouse south of Court Avenue into its new offices. Much of the redevelopment, though, will be predicated on the city moving its public works facilities out of the area, which is likely years away, city officials say.

Hy-Vee brings Knapp back to downtown

One thing overshadowed in the excitement about plans to build a Hy-Vee on Court Avenue: The project marks the return to downtown of one of metro area’s most prominent developers.

Knapp Properties is teaming up with Hy-Vee and OPN Architects to build a 30,000-square-foot grocery store with apartments and a parking garage at 420 Court Ave. It’s the first downtown development for Knapp Properties in more than 30 years.

The company manages several properties downtown but hasn’t developed anything new in the city’s core since the Civic Center Court Apartments in 1981, said Knapp Properties President and CEO Gerry Neugent. “We like downtown a lot,” Neugent said. “We think the market is just so good down there, and when you get a partner like Hy-Vee it’s exciting.”

The city’s Urban Design Review Board is expected to review the initial design of the Hy-Vee project in the coming weeks.

Walnut Street plan gets approval from city

The Urban Design Review Board approved plans Tuesday for several other developments, including the overhaul of Walnut Street. Work to improve the streetscape between Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street is scheduled to begin June 1.

The board also gave its initial approval of a plan to provide nearly $1 million in tax credits for an $8.4 million project to renovate two historic buildings facing the Pappajohn Sculpture Park. Kyle Krause, the CEO of Kum & Go who recently announced plans to bring his company’s headquarters downtown, and his wife, Sharon, plan to turn the buildings at 1420 and 1430 Locust St. into office and retail space.

Developer Jake Christensen’s project to build a two-story retail and office building at 505 E. Grand Ave. was also approved by the board. Local T-shirt shop Raygun will anchor the new East Village building.

Number of the week: -2.34

Freddie Mac released a new measure of housing market stability Wednesday. The Multi-Indicator Market Index, or MiMi, is an index of the single-family housing market in states and metro areas.

A MiMi score between –2 and 2 is considered stable. Housing markets below –2 are weak and those above 2 are elevated, according to Freddie Mac.

The Iowa MiMi is –2.34. While its single-family home market is considered weak, Iowa still scores better than 37 other states.

Freddie Mac uses four indicators to quantify a region’s MiMi: home purchase applications, payment-to-income ratio, the proportion of mortgage payments that are delinquent and employment figures. MiMi is available on Freddie Mac’s website and new figures will be released monthly.